Snails: The Donors in Wartime
by Val Kyreis
Summary: Kathy thought her fate had been settled when she decided to begin her donations. Then her country went to war in the Middle East, and donors and carers sent to a military base faced unimaginable situations.


They promised I could stop working as a carer at the end of the year, so when December came round I wasn't surprised when an iron-haired nurse at the recovery centre in Kingsfield handed me an envelope.

I saw the nurse glancing up from her clipboard curiously, so I stuffed the envelope in my bag and didn't open it before I went to the room of a donor I had been caring for. She was just recovering from a first donation. It had gone well, no unusual problems. She was several years younger than me—I had just turned thirty-two—and her presence was a reminder that almost everyone I remembered from Hailsham was gone now. Perhaps I'm imagining it, but I could feel in her distant attitude a silent reproof that I'd been allowed to go on so long.

When, deep into the evening, I got back to my bedsit, I poured a cup of tea and lay on the bed before opening the envelope. The brief letter was neatly printed. It bore no signature. It simply informed me I had been reclassified as a Field Resource Donor Unit (FRDU) and instructed me to report on January 11 at 11 a.m. to an address in Waddington, Lincolnshire.

This was quite puzzling. As far as I knew—and I'd been a carer for twelve years—Lincolnshire had no recovery centre. And what on earth was an FRDU? Our only allowed jobs were as carers or donors.

I tried to remember my geography from Hailsham. Miss Emily had put up calendars with photos of all the English counties on an easel. Lincolnshire was an agricultural area in the East, not so far from the lost corner of Norwich where Tommy and I spent a happy afternoon. It had nothing to do with our service, however.

A day later, at a roadside cafe, I looked up at a telly on the wall and saw a video of military aeroplanes landing. Politics and history was never part of our curriculum, I suppose because we couldn't vote and the subject wouldn't play much part in our lives. Vaguely, though, I knew the UK had entered some sort of military action, as the news was full of photos of planes, tanks, and young soldiers in smart camouflage uniforms.

That led me to remember Miss Emily's lesson on Lincolnshire had included the fact the Royal Air Force had an important base there. A theory popped in my head about my assignment.

On January 8, a Friday, a white-haired physician who served as director of the Kinsgfield center shook my hand, the first time he had done so, and told me I didn't have to work the weekend, which would have been the first uninterrupted one I had had in two years. Instead, I was to report early Monday morning and drive the clunkiest car in the fleet to Lincolnshire, because given the way things worked in the military, he was doubtful the centre would get it returned anytime soon. That confirmed my theory.

"Is there anything you can tell me about the programme in Lincolnshire?" I asked.

"I really can't say. Military secrecy, you know," he said with a slight smile, reminding me of how Ruth used to imply she had secret knowledge she did not actually possess.

The car stalled out twice on the way to Lincolnshire, and the rain was incessant, but I had taken the precaution of leaving early, so I was quite on time. The address was not, in fact, on a military base, but on the main road in Waddington. As I waited, two other recruits (as I jokingly was calling myself) turned up, a tall, lean youth, evidently still in his teens, and a brown-skinned woman with closely cropped hair that reminded me of Miss Lucy's. I could tell neither of them had received proper schooling. I suppose it was something in their language, or how they didn't make eye contact.

None of us broke the uncomfortable silence. Round about noon, a middle-aged man with a swarthy complexion came in. He introduced himself as Major Tedoro, but instructed us to call him Dr. Ted. His title was director of special programmes for RAF Medical Services. He asked us to say our names and where we were coming from.

The tall boy with reddish-blond hair answered. "Ollie E., transferred straight from the Cottages."

"That was quick."

"I don't want to be a carer, I want to be a soldier. When I heard they were forming this unit, I volunteered straight away."

I was a taken aback that even a neophyte had heard about the programme, while I hadn't.

"Fatima L. I was a carer for two years and then became a donor based in Gloucestershire." I realized I had seen her before, with considerably more hair. Most likely, some of it had fallen out after her first donation, and she had decided to shave her head and let it grow back.

My turn. "Kathy H., I've been a carer for twelve years, mostly in Dover and Kingsbury. Like Ollie, I'm just starting as a donor."

Dr. Ted welcomed us. "You're the first three we have on base but we expect several more to trickle in over the week. I don't know how much any of you know about this programme, but for the two of you who have been in other centres, you should know this will be a somewhat different experience."

"How so?" I asked.

Dr. Ted paused. "Ollie, you know some of this, why don't you explain?"

The youth stood at attention.

"It's a military operation, SIR! We'll be going to a field hospital in…" He named a country in the Middle East, one where we were fighting alongside the Americans to fight evil and build democracy, or something like that.

"That's correct," Dr. Ted said. "With our forces in action, the Ministry of Defense decided we needed a donor presence in the theatre of operations. Any questions?"

I had several, but did not want to ask alongside the other two, especially Ollie, who as a wannabe soldier seemed to be naïve about what donation was really about.

The doctor reached for a phone and a squatty soldier about my age came in. "This is Sergeant Henley, he'll be your first-line supervisor. Sergeant, escort our first batch of volunteers to the base."

Volunteers? I had expressed my wish to become a donor, but I certainly hadn't enlisted in a military operation.

The sergeant saluted and we began to file out behind him. "Stay behind one minute, Kathy," Dr. Ted said.

After the others left, he said, "I suppose you're wondering how you became a volunteer."

"It did cross my mind."

"The others did volunteer to join this experimental programme as donors. However, in modeling our needs, we found we would need experienced carers as well."

"I asked to become a donor. After twelve years I should have a right…"

He put a finger to his lips. "Calm down. You're a donor too."

"How is that possible?" A carer runs ragged traveling round the centres advocating for their patients and comforting them as best as possible. A donor is assigned to a single centre and needs to rest and recover. It would be physically impossible for anyone to fill both functions.

"We've never done this before and in field conditions we do not know how many donors we might need. A suicide bomber might get around our security and blow himself up with a shrapnel bomb, leaving a dozen soldiers with grave internal injuries. In that event, we would need you to become a donor and be replaced by a carer sent in from England."

I thought on that a moment. "So I'll work as a carer, but if I'm needed as an FRD…as a donor, I'd start by making a first donation without any preparation."

He looked down, avoiding my eyes.

"Possibly an enhanced first. In the event of a major casualty incident, every available donor organ might be needed."

"Ah." I felt a dread of the implications.

"Under regulations, in an emergency, the physicians on staff can obtain any donation needed from FDRU's to keep military personnel alive. The public inisists on nothing less but our best effort to save our boys." He must have taken my hard look as a sign I felt he was being sexist, because he added, "That's an expression. There are young women at the base as well of course."

I was less concerned about sexism than something else. "So you can take whatever organs are needed even if it would mean a patient completes on their first donation."

"That's correct. We hope it doesn't work out that way, of course, but we are in a war—even if the government doesn't call it that-and wartime rules apply."

We stood in silence. He was apparently expecting me to say more. I finally understood what it was.

"Thank you, sir."

Yesterday, a new donor arrived at Base Camp Hospital Alpha and asked how our little group got our silly nickname. One might think, based on military protocol, that we would be called some variant of the letters in FDRU, Freddies perhaps.

In actuality, though, it happened on our flight to the Middle East. After two weeks of waiting for other arrivals and medical tests, the first group—seven FDRU's, Sergeant Henley, and Dr. Ted, were sent off on a transport plane.

I was excited since I had never flown before, nor had ever expected to. Tommy and Ruth would be amazed to see what my life had brought. I couldn't have located the country we were going to on a map. Miss Emily's geography lessons hadn't stretched much beyond Britain since it was unlikely any of us would ever see anyplace else.

We climbed into the center of the transport from an internal ladder. The plane's seats faced backwards. It had few windows, which of course was a disappointment. We entered the plane first and were escorted in back of a curtain, to the final two rows. This I suppose was so the actual troops flying out would not see us, except if they had need to use the rear lavatory. Sergeant Henley escorted us to our seats and said he would sit just in front of the curtain.

He would come by occasionally to check on us, and to make sure soldiers using the lavatory did not stop to speak with us. Dr. Ted, meanwhile, would sit up front with the officers.

Sadly, while there were small windows in the emergency exit rows, there was no window in our section. Still, the roar of the engines coming to life and the feel of being pressed into the seat at takeoff were quite novel.

Anyway, I promised to tell you how we got our nickname. About two hours into the flight, a private came back to use the toilet. Henley stood watch at the curtain until he departed. After he left, he asked the sergeant "who are those civilians?" and was told we not civilians at all, but cloned donors.

"That's funny, since you're a supply sergeant I thought they'd be flying as cargo with the rest of the supplies."

Another soldier was just coming back to the toilet and asked Henley, "Did you say flying escargot? You mean snails?"

I have no idea if the soldier misheard—the engine noise in back made it hard to hear—or if it was a joke, or if the sergeant had prearranged the whole bit. At any rate, Henley's answer sealed our nickname.

"Right, we're flying in the Snails."

And that's what they called us from then on.

I should mention at this point that one of the later arrivals was Johnny Q., barely out of his teenage years, with longish, wavy black hair and light skin and an accent that marked him as from Liverpool.

"Why are you so lost in thought?" he said to me as the plane began to descend.

"Oh, I was just wondering if I'd ever again. Silly, really."

"Depends on how long the war lasts, I'd imagine. Personally, I'd prefer not to go back to Liverpool."

"Why do you feel that way?"

"I barely got outside my school fence to see the place. England's not a happy place for us, is it? We're raised as orphans with little education or training and then we're sent out to donate. I just want to do my job and get it over with."

Fatima looked over us. "Kathy may not feel that way. She went to Hailsham, all through."

"I suppose we did get a good education, at least in the arts," I said. "But I'm not at all sure that the way were treated there was better. We were led to believe life would have far more possibilities. Still, I would like to see England again."

Fatima wasn't sure. Based on her name and looks, she believed her model was an Arab, and so had the idea this would feel like going home. "I hope so, because we're probably not returning."

Sergeant Henley must have been listening from the other side of the curtain, because he marched in, hands on hips. "Buck up, all of you. Every soldier and airman on this plane doesn't know if we're coming back, either."

We took up our packs, got out of the plane. My eyes about fried.

Even though it was January, an intense sun beat down upon us. And the sky—giant to the point of enveloping us, and cloudless, with just some dust between us and the deep blue.

Henley had us line up and count off, not that he'd taken his eyes off us since we got off the plane. "Snails, this way to the transport."

I was burning over the nickname, with its insinuations we were less than human and the lowest of the low.

"Why do you call us that awful thing?"

"Look, there's no getting around it, it's weird to have clones here. Ninety-five percent of the soldiers here have never even knowingly seen any of you. Dr. Ted told me not to call you clones. I didn't know what to call you, but when Chapman said "escargot," it all fell into place."

"You should think of a different name."

He barked at me. "What did you say?"

"Could we have a different name, SERGEANT!"

"That's better. Request denied."

The others stayed silent.

As we boarded the transport, Henley put a hand on my shoulder and said softly, "Almost every military unit gets an insulting nickname—hell, we call the Royal Navy the Fish-heads."

Despite my effort to remain angry, I smiled.

We were shuttled into modular barracks, just behind the hospital, just two caravans, really, with a kitchenette, bathroom, and one small private room in each. Both the men's and women's barracks could sleep six. Since we were only four men and three women, it made sense that more of us were on the way.

"Get used to it. The soldiers' barracks aren't any more posh," the sergeant said.

For the first two weeks, we got up at six, before dawn, and did physical fitness training under Henley's leadership. Ollie was bucking to be the first donor, he did his training runs and rope-ladder climbs as if he were in some elite Army unit. In England, donors would have shunned any newcomer who seemed enthusiastic about speeding up his path toward completion, but this was a different situation.

Another donor, a Scot named Evan T., began racing and shouting with Ollie. I suppose they watched the soldiers training separately at the same time calling out their loud, rude military cadences, and decided to mimic them.

During that time, there was no fighting and little call for our services. One night a lorry crashed and two soldiers were injured, one with a broken leg and both with cuts. They had us donate a pint of blood each, hardly necessary given the supply of plasma but I suppose was their way of getting us in the swim of things.

Fatima was still having some problems as a result of her previous donation and Dr. Ted asked me to serve as her carer. Of course I had to say yes, though I hardly wanted the responsibility.

One night I heard a noise of footsteps and whispers outside. I went out and saw a soldier who had sneaked over the fence, crouching at the side of the caravan. Although I could hardly see his face, I could tell he was short and muscular.

"You know this is off limits, I said. "I'll tell the sergeant."

"Please, I just wanted to settle a bet with my mate. There are seven of you Snails, right?"

"Correct."

"And three of you are birds, right?"

"That's correct although none of your business, love."

"What are your names?"

"I'm Kathy. The darker-skinned one is Fatima. And the young one is LaTricia."

"Would you like some chocolates?" He held out an opened box.

"Not particularly. Why are you here?"

"I was sent by my mates to ask if any of you would like to sneak under the fence for a few hours and have a date with one of us soldiers."

"A date, that's what you call it? As you know, fraternization between military personnel and FDRU's is strictly prohibited. For one thing, it's mission-critical we don't contract any STD's."

"We have a good supply of condoms."

"And frankly, even without the regulation, it's not a good idea to mix."

"I know, I know, you can't have babies and technically I'm not even sure if you're fully human but, well frankly, some of us have gotten tired of the porn magazines in our barracks."

At that point, I was angry. "We're not here to be tarts. Go back and tell your mates if you try anything on us, we'll bite you on the neck and turn you into Snails too."

The days soon blended together. After morning exercises, they wanted us out of the sun, so we went to a day room, really a modular unit added to the back of the field hospital. At least it had air conditioning. There, we could take our meals at two small tables, watch satellite television usually tuned to the BBC News or football matches, play cards or chess, or read a book or magazine that didn't have any porn or politics. The sergeant didn't stay with us, but occasionally he or a nurse would come by and tell one of us to report to an examining room for tests.

While we all had the same rank as FDRU's, it was obvious the others viewed me as a carer, and when possible sat at the other table. I was older, bolder in approaching staff, and was the one Henley always consulted with first. I was used to donors distancing themselves from carers at Kingsbury, and it wasn't something I particularly desired, but it was the way of our world, so I didn't fight it.

When we did finally get a call for our services, it wasn't the usual requisition for an internal organ that happened back home. I don't think even Dr. Ted had fully considered the difference between how we were used at home and what would be needed in the field.

One still Sunday afternoon, watching a Chelsea football match, we heard sirens outside. Ollie and Evan went out to take a peek, and told us two ambulances had pulled up at the emergency entrance. We waited for an hour or more, not being told anything, locked away from the main hospital building.

Finally, Henley came back to the day room. "Snails, attention!"

We shot to our feet.

"A motor patrol was doing reconnaissance this morning in Sector 3 and stopped to check on a boy lying near the road, apparently injured, who had flagged them down. When the first two soldiers got out of the armored personnel carrier, they were struck by at least one incendiary device fired from buildings several hundred meters away. Several mobile units returned fire to provide cover while the two soldiers were picked up. However, one rescuer was hit by a homemade explosive device that shot out nails."

When no one spoke up, I asked, "What are the casualties, Sergeant?"

"The two soldiers in the first attack are in critical condition with severe burns and shrapnel wounds in the arms and legs, although their Kevlar vests protected their torsos. The soldier in the second attack suffered severe arterial bleeding from the thigh and was declared dead at the hospital a few minutes ago."

Ollie piped up in his gung-ho way, "What do you need from us, Sergeant?" Most of the others glared at him.

"The doctors aren't quite sure yet. Kathy—come with me."

He unlocked the door and we went inside the main building to a small office. "Dr. Ted says when the burn patients are stabilized, they're going to need skin grafts. We want to do the first set here. Of course the donor skin will ultimately be rejected by the patients' bodies, but by then we can get them back to England and perform any replacement grafts there until the patients are able to regrow their own skin."

"All right, so what's that mean for the unit, Sergeant?"

"They calculated the surface area needed, and we can do it with donations from four Snails without going beyond normal first donation amounts."

"All right. Who are you taking?"

"Ollie and Evan, obviously, they're strongest and they want to go first."

"I would say Ollie wants to go first and Evan is too dim to know this is a competition he doesn't want to win."

He looked at my appraisingly. "Quite right. For the others, Chris and Fatima."

I didn't want to get involved in the choice, but couldn't stay silent. "Fatima is still struggling from her last donation in Dover and they don't have her allergies from the desert dust under control yet. Any new donation could be dangerous."

"We have to use at least one woman or it won't be fair. LaTricia, then."

"Why not Kathy?"

"We're going to need _her_ —he emphasized the third-person pronoun to pick up on my phrasing-as a carer for the four burn patients. That was about your normal workload, right?"

"Three, more often."

"You won't be driving around the country this time."

"As I've said several times, I don't wish to be a carer anymore. I want to live out my days as a donor and not have to worry about the health of others all the time."

"It's a war, everyone can't get their wish. The soldier who died today was a trumpeter who had requested transfer to a military band."

"I'm sorry, Sergeant."

"Prepare the Snails for donations."

"Yes, Sergeant."

We went back to the dayroom and Henley ordered: "Ollie, Chris, Johnny, LaTricia,…come with me, it's time to go to work. Kathy will be your carer."

The five of us filed out. As we got to the doorway, LaTricia bumped into me, hard, as Ruth had once done at Hailsham. It was obvious to her I'd had a hand in the selections, and she didn't appreciate it.

We waited in a small room near the operating rooms, watching the rest of the football match. I talked to all four of them individually, reassuring them about how easy it was to recover from skin grafts. LaTricia turned her back as I spoke.

Hours later, all four patients had emerged from the operating room. They had moleskin and bandages covering their backs in a big square, as well as smaller rectangles on the backs of their thighs, making them look something like a Cubist painting. The first stage of the recovery required them to lie on their stomachs awkwardly, their feet elevated, making it impossible for them to see the telly.

I alternately visited the three men, who were in semi-private rooms separated by a curtain, read from magazines, asked about pain so the doctors and nurses would medicate them properly. On my suggestion, Fatima was assigned to care for LaTricia, who wouldn't speak to me.

Ollie kept asking about what had happened to the patient he had donated to, and of course I hadn't been told anything. Henley wouldn't tell me, and I didn't know any of the nurses well enough to ask. Still, I was able to hear on the news that one of the two soldiers had survived and the other had died on Monday. Of course, I told Ollie that his patient had lived.

"It was on the BBC? I knew I would do something important," he said.

As winter gave way to spring, the heat became so intense that even those of us who weren't in recovery did only brief morning calisthenics and training runs. We could see the soldiers continuing to train hard on the dusty, white-brown plain beneath the cloudless sky, their deep shadows alternately trailing or leading them. More and more, I missed the muted grays and greens of home.

In those days, there was no need for organ donations. The soldiers' Kevlar vests adequately shielded their torsos from the light arms and incendiary devices used by the insurgents, and unlike our side, they had little artillery and no fire from aircraft. If the other side was also using a donor system, their Snails were having a rougher go.

Burns were the main issue. Both Chris and Fatima (now healthier) made skin donations, while Ollie and Evan, recovering the fastest from their firsts, were scheduled to be turned over like roto chickens and have skin taken from their chests.

A new pack of Snails was rumored on its way, and there was talk that perhaps some of us originals might be sent back to England, something I think we all dreaded. There was something exciting about being in a war zone, being treated as valuable military contributors. And frankly, the slow pace of donations seemed to promise a longer existence.

Alone among the seven of us, I had made no donations, other than blood. Most of the others, and the staff, treated me as a normal carer, with all the good and bad things that entailed. LaTricia remained quite angry, though, and I heard second-hand she had called me a slacker, an arse-kisser and worse. It got so bad Henley gave her permission to sleep in the day room to avoid being in the barracks with me. But all told, the weeks went well.

Naturally, the peace was too good to last.

One spring day, Dr. Ted and the sergeant called me in to say a colonel, one of the highest ranking officers on the base, had been diagnosed with a coronary disorder that caused his ventricle to leak.

Rather than shipping him back to England, they had decided to perform a transplant in the field hospital. I surmised that since we were under military control, this was a way of avoiding the normal wait list for health service heart transplant recipients.

I objected immediately. "A heart is always a fourth donation. By helping a colonel evade the wait list, you're forcing one of our group to complete early."

"Normal procedures do not apply in wartime," Dr. Ted said coldly.

I sighed. "I don't like it, but it's not for me to say, sir."

"That's correct. Now let's get on with deciding who the donor should be. The women's hearts can't pump enough blood to sustain a large man. Chris is the wrong blood type. That leaves Evan, Ollie, and Johnny as suitable."

Silence.

"We'll speak in reverse order of seniority so everyone can have their say without having to disagree with their superiors. Do you have a recommendation, Kathy?"

I felt sick. "It's not for me to make life-or-death decisions."

"You're the group leader, and that's what squad leaders do in wartime. They make tough decisions based on what is best for service."

"Sorry, sir, but I'll pass. Snails should stay low to the ground."

"Sergeant?"

"Ollie and Evan are the two strongest…probably Ollie."

I felt my own heart growing constricted. "Wait!" I said. "Ollie is enthusiastic and wonderful for morale, and he and Evan are by far the two fittest. It would be better to wait until their organs were needed for active fighting men instead of wasting one of their hearts on a sedentary officer who will hardly need to pump that level of blood."

"That's exactly what I meant about making tough decisions based on service needs," Dr. Ted said.

"Sergeant?"

"I'll go along with that."

Dr. Ted said: "All right, it's decided. Write up the order for Johnny."

Although I won my case, I don't think I've ever felt as badly in my life, except for Tommy when Miss Emily told us deferrals for couples in love did not exist.

Making it even worse, I would be Johnny's carer, though I was sworn to secrecy about the nature of the procedure.

When I saw Johnny again, I found I could keep a secret with my lips but perhaps not with my eyes. My last memory of him came just before he was wheeled into the operating room. He softly cried as I brushed the thick black hair back from his forehead.

The more I thought about what was done to Johnny because of my complicity, the more it made me cry. How could I have made the suggestion that led to his early completion? Still, if it I had been silent and Ollie had been chosen, I would have felt just as badly, if not worse. The situation made it impossible to do the right thing.

One afternoon, after I gave my report on the morale of my patients, I confronted Dr. Ted.

"Sir, no donor just should give his life to help a senior officer evade supply restrictions on organs."

"I'm sorry you feel that way, Kathy, but that's the decision. Senior officers have higher military value than donors."

"In that case, I request a transfer back to England as a donor."

"Request denied," he said. "We need you here doing what you're doing more."

Despite my growing guilt, and nights of sleeplessness, I was starting to develop feelings for Ollie. I'd had sex with Tommy when I was his carer, and while that had been worth it, the price of going through doomed love again was too dear. But one afternoon when we found the other half of his semi-private recovery room unoccupied, I reached round below his boxers and gave him a bit of pleasure, the way I'd done with Tommy when he was too weak for intercourse.

He was effusive with gratitude and offered to have proper sex the next time.

"Are you strong enough?"

"I believe so. And now that I'm lying on my back instead of my stomach, it might be possible without too much contortion."

We enjoyed the next afternoon a bit more.

The war, and everyone in it, seemed to slow down as the thermometer kept rising to levels that we English could scarcely believe. The weekend of summer solstice, however, everything changed all at once.

On Saturday night, the base hosted a concert in the rec center, featuring the Now Girls, one of the biggest acts in England, and I suppose one of the best if electronic pop music is your thing. One of the girls was dating a prince, and they were happy to show their patriotism by doing a free concert to boost morale among the soldiers.

The rec center wasn't large enough to accommodate everyone, so they decided to have the five famous girls and their many backups perform two shows. Of course, we weren't invited to either.

"Our morale could use a boost, too," I said to Dr. Ted, hopefully.

"We're at capacity already, and too many questions will be asked if you are there instead of soldiers," he said. "We'll see if we can set up closed-circuit television into the day room."

Everyone, especially the younger boys, talked of nothing else for days. When Saturday night came, we watched the first concert on a big-screen TV specially brought in for the occasion, with a modern speaker system turned up to ten. We shook and danced through the first concert as if we were present. My pleasure was diminished, though, by the sight of numerous civilians in the crowd who had been chosen to attend instead of us.

We were partway into the second when the music was replaced by screams.

Some insurgents had managed to disarm the electrified fence, tunnel under the wall, and sneak into the compound unnoticed in the darkness. They tossed a firebomb right through a small window of the rec center. They followed that with a crude pipe bomb that spit out nails.

We waited anxiously as the screen went to black. We could listen to sirens and see flashing lights outside the window.

Within an hour, an orderly came for me and took me through the locked door to the front of the hospital. A triage unit had been set up. Near the entrance I counted five dead, sheets over their heads. About twenty severely wounded were in the hallway, some on cots, with nurses walking among them with bandages. Others filled the operating rooms. About three dozen with lesser wounds, including one of the Now Girls, sat in the reception area.

Two paramedics rushed by carrying a stretcher and went into an operating room and I heard one tell a nurse "cardiac wound." My view was obscured and I couldn't tell if it was a man or woman.

I found Henley in Dr. Ted's office. "This is way beyond anything we're prepared to deal with—not enough nurses, not enough doctors, not enough orderlies, not enough beds."

"How can I help? The floor is pretty slick with blood—I could clean it."

"Officially, it's forbidden, but if you grab a mop and pail no one will stop you."

It wasn't heroic. I mopped for an hour—by the time I finished in one place, there was blood or discarded supplies somewhere else—when Dr. Ted himself came by and told me to come in his office along with Henley.

He asked the sergeant: "How many effective donor resource units can we muster?"

Henley said, "Four are immediately ready and three in late recovery can be used safely."

"Seven is not enough," the doctor said. "How many in early recovery stages?"

"Three."

"Let's use all ten. The preliminary count is we'll need at least a dozen skin grafts and five internal organs, since no one was wearing a vest in the rec center."

"Sir, those three are weak from recent procedures and have substantial risk of completion," I objected.

"I'm sorry, Kathy, but this is the way to save the most lives. Henley will give the orders, but after that I need you to speak to the donors individually. Emphasize how critical this is, get them mentally prepared, keep them calm."

My accumulated guilt had grown unbearable.

"May I speak, sir?"

"Yes."

"I'll do it on one condition. You need every possible donor, so I should be included too. My position is untenable otherwise. It won't be just LaTricia, they all will hate me."

"Henley?"

"I'm opposed. Kathy's the group leader. She's more valuable as a carer than a donor."

"Not if I tell everyone the real reason Johnny had to complete on his first."

Henley turned on me with rage. "You're threatening to sabotage our morale during the largest mass casualty incident British forces have faced in fifty years? If you were a soldier, you could be shot for something like that."

"I'd might prefer being shot to seeing anyone else sacrificed needlessly."

"Enough!" Dr. Ted said. "Sergeant, call up the requisition forms and mark all eleven units as ready. Divide them into three groups. The first group are those who have no prior donations, including Kathy. The second group are those in late-stage recovery. The third group are in early stage recovery and are only to be used if necessary."

"Yes, sir."

"Further ordered, the surgeons are authorized to have any of the units complete regardless of their number of prior donations."

"May I suggest an additional order, sir?"

"Go ahead, sergeant."

"Kathy should be marked to go first, assuming she's a reasonable match for the most critical patient."

"All right," Dr. Ted said. He turned to me: "Is that really what you want?"

It seemed as though they were making the conditions as unfavorable as possible in the hope I'd relent and plead to go back as a carer. What if the cardiac patient I had seen wheeled by turned out to be a Now Girl with a wound at the edge of her heart? I would be as dead as Johnny in a few hours. .

All I said was, "Yes, sir."

Henley wouldn't speak or look at me as we walked back to the dayroom. He told the group about the size and scope of the emergency and outlined the order in which the three groups would be called, lying that Dr. Ted had chosen me to go first because I'd gotten off so lightly so far. LaTricia made a rude noise and stuck out her tongue at me.

The sergeant left the room to give the same message to the donors who were in hospital beds. They would be wheeled, if necessary, to the waiting room.

Chris turned to me. "What if they need fifteen kidneys and there are only eleven of us, will they take both kidneys from four people?"

"What if they need a heart," LaTricia added, her voice raised. "It's not fair to do that on a first."

"What if somebody got half his penis blown off?" Chris returned. "I don't want to lose my willie so a soldier can get a replacement. What an awful way to live."

Someone started a chant, "We Want Our Willies." Most of the group joined in, even the women.

"I'm going to fight my way out of here," Chris said. He rose and went to the kitchenette in search of a knife.

That moment marked the first time in my thirty-two years I'd heard anyone suggest rebellion. I suppose it came about because for the first time, we had regular access to television news, and understood people protested all sorts of injustices, all over the world, and what was being done to us certainly fit that category.

My thinking on this had changed. I now believed we would be justified in rebellion. Still, this was not the time.

"Stop Chris, before the guard sees you!," I barked. "Escape is a silly idea. We're five hundred miles from water in the middle of a desert with no one who speaks English to hide us, and we all have tracking chips inside us. And it's especially wrong now. There are dozens of wounded soldiers out there and we're needed more than any donors have ever been needed before!"

That quieted the room.

I took a breath and continued in a softer tone. "Chris, if you feel so strongly, you should tell the surgeon if he snips your willie he should keep you under anesthesia until you complete. I've been told, unofficially, that such a request will be honored."

In point of fact, I'd never heard penis transplants discussed. Still, that calmed him down, and everyone seemed to believe what I said. It must have been the authority that came from having attended Hailsham, which Ruth had used to use to spread lies.

"Honestly, I don't think it will be that bad. It doesn't help to imagine the worst. Can we all agree to get in a circle and hold hands and focus on our breathing exercises and remaining calm?"

Eight people initially came into in the circle, and even Chris joined us. Only LaTricia remained outside.

"Breathe in…one, two, three."

"Breathe out…one, two three."

"Keep that breathing pattern. Imagine you are in a field and all ahead of you is nothing but tall grass waving back and forth in the wind…."

After the circle ended, I told people they could go back to the caravans, in pairs, to grab precious objects to keep with them as good-luck totems during surgery. Since I was expecting to be called first, I assigned myself to the first pair. I went back to the caravan to find the Judy Bridgewater tape that I'd found with Tommy in Norwich.

It was in my ancient cassette player. I turned it on to listen to "Never Let Me Go," dancing alone in the privacy room, holding a pillow to my breast, as I'd done as a girl to signify the baby I could never have.

I couldn't have been gone more than ten minutes, but when I got back to the dayroom, the sergeant was standing at the entrance. "Kathy H., who gave you permission to exit this area and tell the others they could leave?" he roared.

"No one did, Sergeant, but you didn't order us not to leave the room."

"I said it was an emergency situation and all of you had to be available immediately. The doctors called for the first donor three minutes ago and you weren't here."

"Sorry, Sergeant." The others in the room stared at their shoes, perhaps shocked by the full force of his temper.

"I'm going to call a guard," the sergeant said.

He waited for the guard to arrive and instructed him not to let anyone to leave. He grabbed me roughly by the arm, slammed the door, and marched me to the waiting room on the other side of the hospital. "I'm going to lock the door from the outside," he barked.

"I can't understand why you'd be so angry at me for taking a few minutes to get my most precious possession."

"You don't get it, do you? You forced Dr. Ted to make you a donor when you're ten times more valuable to us as a carer and the group leader. We have let you have unprecedented input into our decision-making, and you just give it all up to become one of them. So you'd better get used to being treated like the lowest of the fucking Snails."

I wept. Not only was I facing an uncertain donation alone, without a carer, I was being treated as an ungrateful traitor.

Within a few minutes, a Jamaican nurse's assistant came and saw me sobbing. She must have thought I was a five-year-old, because she handed me a hanky and said "There, there, it's not so bad, you won't feel a thing."

She told me to take off all my clothes and get into a hospital gown. She had me lie on a stretcher and belted me at the waist. Just then, another orderly pushed Evan into the room on a stretcher. We briefly touched hands.

My nurse rolled me past lines of wounded men and women sprawled on the hallway floor. We entered an operating room.

After a time, a white coat entered carrying a clipboard. "I'm Dr. Fenwick, the anesthesiologist." He asked my name, date of birth, and FDRU number, and checked it with his chart and with the tags on my wrist and ankle.

"Very well," he said brightly. "We're going to start with an intravenous drip and within a few minutes you'll be asleep and won't feel anything."

I should stop to explain that in my experience as a carer, the surgeon would say vaguely reassuring things to any donor, like "You'll be up and about in days," even if they knew the recovery time was understated or there was a chance the patient might complete. Final donations were different. They didn't lie to doomed patients, they only said positive things like "You've done a fantastic job so far, just a bit more to go."

Naturally, I wished to know which situation applied to me. "Can the surgeon come in and talk about the nature of the procedure?"

"I'm afraid not, the surgeons are all very busy with wounded soldiers."

"Can you tell me anything?"

"I can't. I don't even know what the procedure will be."

That was a lie. I've seen the medical charts on those clipboards, each page is marked with the precise nature of the donations.

"Can you at least tell me if I'm going to complete today?"

"I imagine you won't," he said, without warmth. "That would be quite unusual for a first donation."

This is a quite unusual situation, dummy.

A nurse started the drip. The anesthesiologist had me count to one hundred. The last number I remember was seventeen.

Ruth walked through the rhubarb patch, off limits at Hailsham, but I refused to follow. At the Cottages, old Keffers shook his head and gruffly told us we were using too many gas canisters and to get more blankets. In his room at the Kingsbury center, Tommy showed me his animal art and explained his theory about the Gallery. Miss Ruth visited my bedsit in Dover, shook me lightly, and said "Kathy, time to wake up."

Dr. Ted, a surgeon I didn't know, a nurse, and a young woman in civilian clothes stood over me.

"Are you awake?" Dr. Ted said.

"Yes. What day is it?"

"Wednesday."

"So I've been asleep for three days?"

"Yes, we were too busy to do the second procedure until Tuesday afternoon. How do you feel?"

"My arms are tingling and I can't feel my legs."

"You'll feel more as the anesthetic wears off. We'll give you some pain pills."

"Yes, I know the drilll. Tell me about the procedure. You obviously didn't need my heart."

"No, of course not. We took your left kidney."

"All right."

"Also, we took a skin patch from both thighs. You'll be lying on your back anyway, so it shouldn't complicate your recovery too much."

"I hope not."

"I want to introduce you to somebody. This is Jessica K., just flown in from England, she'll be your carer." A short woman, younger than me, with dark, straight hair, took my hand lightly.

Dr. Ted continued, "The service told me the two finest carers in England were Kathy H. and Jessica K."

"Ah, so they drafted you to replace me."

"I hope you don't mind."

"Not at all."

After the doctor left, I asked her, "Did all of the donors make it through?"

She didn't answer.

"I can tell that's a no."

"You were a carer, you know I can't discuss it while you're in deep recovery."

"Evan completed, didn't he?"

Her mouth opened wide. "How could you possibly know that?"

"I was in the emergency unit straightaway. I saw them wheel in someone with a cardiac injury. It must have been a male or they would have used my heart. Evan was the second patient in the waiting room after me, even though he wasn't ambulatory and should have been in the third group. He and Ollie had the two strongest hearts. It all adds up."

"Impressive. I should call you Miss Marple."

As it turned out, Jessica T. had more authority than I ever had, more than any carer, really. Her job title was senior carer, and although she was one of us she was actually paid instead of just getting expenses. Her elevated status might mean donors wouldn't be as envious of her as LaTricia had been of me. It also meant she could remain indefinitely, perhaps with less guilt than I had been suffering.

As the days went on, my periods of wakefulness without severe pain rose from a half-hour a day to several hours to the point where I could take simply Advil instead of opioids.

Jessica was so solicitous I found it hard to hate her, although that would have been natural. At one point she asked if I had suggestions for improvements.

I mentioned how Johnny's heart capture had been so unfair and the overwhelming fear among the men of losing their willies. "Now that I've thought about it, I wouldn't want my uterus inside someone else. Really, all genital transplants should be banned unless the donor has already completed from other donations."

She promised to bring those issues up with the carer supervisor in England, if necessary. I don't know if anything will be done, but at least I got my word in on policy, something I never would have felt was my right in England.

One day, after I was out of deep recovery, Jessica said, "I know you had quite a row with Sergeant Henley, but Dr. Ted told me it would be acceptable if I enlist you as my deputy. The unit has been expanded as a result of the bombing and we have work for at least three carers."

"Thank you. I'll sleep on it."

The next day, I told Jessica no. I requested to be transferred to a centre back in England to continue my donations. Quite frankly, I didn't want to have to watch another generation of friends weaken and complete.

A week later, Dr. Ted handed me an envelope. I was being transferred to a new military centre in Cornwall to continue as an FDSU with the notation "Donor Only".

"Cornwall centre is on a bluff with view of a village and the sea," he said. "You won't have met a soul there and no one will ask you to do anything except be a donor. I've asked them to let you complete on your own schedule, since it's my impression you'd rather accelerate the process."

"Thank you, sir. That will make it easier."

Four weeks after my donation, I was walking again, and after seven, I was deemed fit to fly. The day before the transport arrived, Sergeant Henley asked me to leave the dayroom with him.

He apologized for having called me a traitor. He'd learned of my speech to the group when Chris threatened rebellion, and told me he now believed I had always acted in the best interest of the service, "like a master sergeant."

He escorted me back to the dayroom and opened the door. "Surprise!" Nurses, doctors, carers, and donors, some on stretchers, filled the room. All of the Snails were there except LaTricia, who was boycotting, and of course Johnny and Evan.

A paper sign on the door, held up with tape, read "Farewell, Kathy" with crude watercolors of a desert on top and a village green on the bottom.

Chris rose from his wheelchair and walked uncertainly toward me. He hugged me and whispered: "Kidney lost, willie intact, using it with a carer." He looked over at Jessica, who smiled.

Henley brought out a velvet chocolate cake, my favorite, and had me blow out a candle.

After we each had slices, Dr. Ted told me to go over to the door. "Rip the tape off and take down the farewell sign."

The door revealed a golden plaque:

KATHY H. DONOR DAYROOM

She Served With Honour

"Just so's everyone who comes after will ask about you," the sergeant said.

Ollie wore an Army beret and a camouflage shirt. He put out his arms and gave me a hug that turned into a slow kiss.

He whispered: "They let me meet my first recipient today, and he presented me with one of his obsolete uniform tops. They took a video that will be on the BBC. None of it would have happened if it hadn't been for you getting them to spare my life."

"Positive publicity for our programme—it will help us gain support back home," Dr. Ted explained.

For the first time, one of us is being made visible to the public as a human being. I've been told they will allow Ollie to remain as a kind of mascot. Every few months, he will alternately donate skin from his chest and his back, getting in a few weeks of morning exercises in between times, as cheerful a pretend soldier as ever. No, a real soldier.

I've helped produce progress in my lifetime. And that, I suppose, is about as happy an ending as I could have hoped to write. To those lucky enough to have more choices in life, will you have one that's better?


End file.
